


The Difference

by White_Rabbits_Clock



Series: Odds and Ends [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe- Magic, F/M, Gen, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Rabbits_Clock/pseuds/White_Rabbits_Clock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt by idareyoutowrite:</p><p>Be creative! One of humanities worst universal fears is something happening to their children. Among other gruesome fears, this has culminated in many different ‘changeling’ type myths throughout cultures. These legends cite children exchanged with faeries, demons, and other such supernatural creatures; but they all have one thing in common: the idea that the child is in fact an impostor. Take this idea and run with it. You do not necessarily have to use a supernatural being.</p><p>Think outside the box!</p><p>If you’re brave enough to post, don’t forget to tag I dare you to write and indicate whether or not concrit is welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference

CHANGELINGS

He doesn’t trust his eyes- hadn’t for a while now. There’s so many ways to trick someone’s vision. Sherlock knew this about him, and had come close to acknowledging that it wouldn’t be like that if it weren’t for Baskerville.  So when he jumped off Bart’s, John didn’t trust his eyes. He didn’t trust Sherlock’s death until much later, standing at his gravestone, begging him not to be dead.

When he saw Sherlock so much later- far too late, in John’s opinion- and dressed as a waiter, he didn’t believe it was him. He didn’t believe that his one-time friend and eternal grief was waiting his table. He ignored it. Mary ignored it. They collectively had nothing to say about it until they had to. Then John hit Sherlock. Hard. Every place they went, everything he said rubbed John the wrong way. That’s how he knew.

This was not Sherlock being so cavalier about breaking John’s heart. This was not Sherlock being so happy about everything. His Sherlock didn’t do happy. His Sherlock had grown, in the time they had been together. He was less cocky I’m-so-smart. He understood it- shit, he got it. It clicked for him, in the end, up on the roof at Bart’s. He felt it deep in his gut.

It was so painful and John just didn’t trust that Sherlock could have forgotten all of that. He just didn’t trust it. It’s like that’s not Sherlock.

It was in his head, then; the idea that Sherlock wasn’t Sherlock, as if someone had switched his greatest friend with a mockery of that beautiful mind. It scared John. It made him paranoid. Sometimes he could see this imposter in the corner of his eye. He’d turn around and Sherlock wasn’t there… but sometimes he was.

A month after Sherlock came back, Mary noticed that something was wrong. She noticed that John hardly slept and that he lost weight and appetite. She asked him about it, and got evasion and non answers and “everything’s all right, love.” She put it to the back of her mind as the forefront is taken over by wedding preparations.

Then John found Sherlock in a drug house, and it was like hell broke loose. Magnusson, with his brilliant mind, and fake-Sherlock went head to head, and John was there to witness it- including that fatal shot. That was what finally pushed John over.

Sherlock’s deductions- his genius, his cunning his experience- made him one of the most factually perceptive people in the world. Yet, he never considered that Magnusson could have a mind palace too. He, a master manipulator, never once considered that the very king of manipulators could think in exactly the same way. It wasn’t right. It just couldn’t happen- it was a difference.

John had a psychotic break shortly after because he knew- just absolutely knew- that this wasn’t his Sherlock. He pulled a gun on this thing that looked like his best friend and tried to make him reveal himself. A bullet later and it worked. The creature that morphed from that familiar face was taller, paler, and thinner, with a facial structure reminiscent of glass. It wasn’t Sherlock. John was right. He wasn’t crazy. It worked.

 It also killed his life. A gamut of tests followed by a gamut of psychiatrists ended him in a maximum security mental hospital. They say he was unhinged, and dangerous. They doped him up on medication and left him in there to rot, because even if John knew, no one else did. No one believed him. No one could see such a gap in deductions like John did. No one saw that beautiful, mesmeric creature pretending to be his detective.

Mycroft paid him a visit in secret- away from Sherlock’s eye. John had gotten thinner- much thinner, paranoia eating away at fat and muscle and sleep and health, leaving that once strong creature a warped, scared, drugged husk of himself. His mouth, when Mycroft spoke, sometimes moved, as if he was about to speak. It was only once that and every other non-reaction had been catalogued as meaningless that Mycroft stood to go.

As he reached the door, the first sound the doctor’s made this entire time had the older brother turning around. He waited quietly while John pushed through his drugged haze to say something intelligent.

“That’s… not… Sherlock…” What he’s been saying the whole time. Mycroft left, after that, allowing the guards to take John back to his room or to the mess hall or wherever he’s supposed to be now. The seed of doubt, however, had been planted.

Quietly, he began to search the world for his brother. Every place he’s been, every place he should have been, growing in an ever expanding circle until he stumbled upon a minor branch of Moriarty’s web. Huh. Sherlock should have gotten them all…

That branch just so happened to have a captive, whose beard was down to his collarbone and whose once lovely curling hair was matted with blood and all manner of substances both his own and not. Subtly, Mycroft arranged for that man to be liberated, every member of the branch be questioned and killed, and John to have a different therapist- one who was just meant to keep everybody fooled while moving John towards a place where a private family highly invested in the doctor could have him released into their care quietly.

He sat by the man from the terrorist cell’s bed and watched those skeletal fingers, twitching on the bed in his sleep. His wiry muscles had been eaten away in his time. He looked tired- so tired. It occurred to Mycroft that not only was John right, but that the British Government had no idea that the creature walking around in a bell staff was definitely not his brother.

So Mycroft waited while John was “recovering” from his psychotic break and his brother was a sleeping skeleton next to him. Thirty six hours of drug-induced sleep later, the younger Holmes opened silver eyes and completely freaked out, ripping the IV (painfully) out of his arm and backing himself into a corner, getting low and ready to take out anyone in range.

Mycroft stared. He brought this on.

He held his hands away from his sides, umbrella by his chair, as he tried to talk to a man bent on survival and unable to move past it. It was his inattentiveness.

Sherlock was speaking in Russian- that’s where he’d been found- demanding that he be left alone. He should have seen the differences. He talked to Sherlock first. He saw that happy-go-lucky attitude and just… assumed.

Mycroft spoke in perfect Russian, telling Sherlock all that had happened, where he was, what time it was, what date it was. He refrained from telling him about John, except to say that he doesn’t know, and the imposter. He spoke and spoke until the words got past those disbelieving ears. Sherlock set down the IV stand and sat once more on the bed. His head had been shaved, along with his beard. He had many scars on his face, marring that beautiful skin. His hands shook as he took a step forwards on cold feet and wrapped his skinny arms around his brother’s shoulders and just hugged for a while.

They stood as long as Sherlock was able to before moving to the bed. Then, the detective whispered, in a voice brimming with guilt: “tell me about John.”

Mycroft looks him in the eye and tells him about all that’s happened for the past year: his supposed “return”, his rise to prominence, the marriage, Magnusson, his blogger’s perceptiveness and resulting descent into madness.

“Mary…” Sherlock said, his voice low in his throat, “betrayed John…”

“Yes.”

“Where is she now?”

“Filing for divorce.” Sherlock nodded.

“What will happen to John?”

“I’m having a psychiatrist subtly adjust her notes so that it looks as though John is stabilizing. As soon as possible, I’m having him released into the care of a shadow family and moved to one of the estates.” Sherlock turned a silver glare on Mycroft.

“He’ll hate that.”

“His life is ruined. He’s “that guy who shot his best friend” and “the psycho”, now. I can’t leave him in the hospital when he’s fucking right, Sherlock, but he can’t go back to the city. Not like this. Not for years.”

“I want to go, too.” Mycroft laid a hand on top of his brother’s.

“Of course. I’ll see what can be done about your fake.” Sherlock, for all he was getting sleepy, did not miss the guilt in that sentence.

 

PRESENT DAY

 

A week later, Sherlock exits the black vehicle Mycroft has put him in, coat drawn tight about him. He’s always cold, now. He strides into the house and through it, familiarizing himself with his surroundings before walking out the sliding glass door and onto the veranda in the back of the house. His shoes carried him silently over the walk and between the blossoming cherry trees of early spring.  There, sitting on a bench and very much worse for where, is John Watson.

The clinically insane doctor looks up, dark circles under his eyes, as Sherlock intentionally scuffs fallen petals, making bits of noise. He stares in shock as the real Sherlock- the version that is dilapidated and starved, tortured and frozen from his time away- steps closer. He sinks down in front of John and pulls off his coat, hat, scarf, gloves, glasses, and the black turtleneck keeping him warm to reveal his weathered body to his friend.

“It’s really me, John. I swear, it’s really me.”  John surges forwards and wrapps his arms around Sherlock, the sounds that squeezed their way out his throat unnatural for such a strong person. They stay as long as their knees let them before Sherlock stands and dresses himself once more. Then they sit side by side.

There’s a lot of shit that needed to be dealt with- Mary and the baby and the fake Sherlock at the forefront of it all. Neither of them eat right anymore, and Sherlock’s been drugged so many times that it’s hard to not relapse. They have to learn how to sleep and how to balance their paranoia with their reality. They’ll have to tell Lestrade. They’ll have to get cases for Sherlock and patients for John.

They’ll have to clear the shit from their lives, but for now, with Mycroft standing just inside the house, barely behind the line of sunlight, the two of them find peace in each other for the first time in four years.

It’s as good an ending as any.


End file.
